Christine Lagarde is Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She previously served as France’s finance minister from 2007-2011, and in 2009 was named by the Financial Times as the best finance minister in the eurozone.

Comments

Global Temperatures went up from 1973 to 2003, but went down before and after that 30 year period while CO2 rose continuously. See Paullitely.com for Putin's Science and Economy briefing 2004 for Kyoto on Global Warming, and proofs and details. Read more

Taxing carbon probably would have worked if implemented back in the 80s when we first understood global warming. It's now too late for that. We need an Apollo project for the planet to build renewable infrastructure and help countries jump straight to rooftop solar and skip coal. It's the only way humans have a chance to continue in this planet. The planet doesn't care it will carry on for billions of more years without us. We will only be a blip in history at this rate. Read more

'Carbon Emission Trading' between developed and emerging countries?Who gets the lion’s (economic) share of this kind of trading?Why ‪world‬ puts up with such unethical way of someone's polluting in favor of ones profits, at the expense of poor countries and of environment? Read more

"Carbon emissions-trading programs" somewhat similar to the indulgences sold in the middle ages,"I have bough the right to sin/contaminate", could introduce a lot of distorting corruption into the fight for a better environment, one that could be justified independently of climate change threats. And, if carbon taxes are not strictly tax neutral, then these will soon be denounced as a hoax. Read more

Giving carbon-tax revenue to corrupt governments (all and or any of them) is an amusing idea. And it puts the "climate change summit" in proper perspective. Climate change has been, and will continue to be a sacred-cow political excuse for politicians to do what they always do: line their pockets.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we are about to pass the 40-gigaton per-year carbon-release milestone this year, and while some may be slow to admit it, there is a general consensus in the scientific community that we are already well-past the tipping point where any amount of 'conservation' will prevent the accelerating pace of global warming.

If you posed the question: If we cut our carbon-emissions in half right away (from 40-gt to 20-gt per year), would it have any noticeable impact on the continued warming of the atmosphere and oceans?

Most with qualifications to opine would say "probably not". The fact that politicians have focused on carbon-taxes as a means of establishing their credentials as "green-activists" fbo "green-consuming" professional altruists on the left, simply underscores a common theme: liberalism is a big business, and the goal is the same as for all big businesses: make more money.

In fact, we need leaders capable of recognizing the magnitude of the threats we face now, and start thinking about how to do something about them. What are they?

1. What are we prepared to do to prevent the continued melting of land-ice in Greenland and the Antarctic?

2. At what point will major developed countries confront the possibility of sudden, cataclysmic releases of water or land-ice? For example, researchers have discovered at least one massive iiquid water aquifer under the ice-pack in Greenland covering 70,000 sq. km. with enough water to raise sea-levels 0.5mm alone (and this does not take into account the potential domino effect on surrounding faults, should that one aquifer find an open pathway to the ocean).

The fact is, while the official scientific forecast for sea-level increases is in the vicinity of 1-meter by 2100, there are numerous un-quantified (but plausible) risk scenarios which could contribute to something far more dramatic, much sooner. How about 6-meters by 2030? If you own property in Manhattan, or Florida, you'll want to keep an eye on this.

3. Then there's the frozen methane problem. Climate scientists estimate from 1000 gigatons, to 3000 gigatons of frozen sea-bed methane, and frozen tundra methane are at risk of producing sudden "burps" of 50 to 300 gigatons as temperatures continue their steady march upwards.

To put that in perspective: these same scientists estimate the total human-caused emissions in the last 200 years at roughly 350-gigatons. Given that even if we were to actually able to halt the increase in the amount of carbon we emit each year, and hold it steady at 40-gt, temperatures will continue to rise, which leaders of which wealthy highly industrialized nations have put the question on the table:

What can we do to prevent one or more massive releases of methane into the atmosphere, the possibility of which already exists right now? For example: might it not be a good idea to deploy sensors in the shallow seas off the coast of Siberia to monitor the release of frozen methane from those sea-beds?

Since it appears some melting is inevitable, perhaps we should engage our energy companies to find ways to extract the methane before it melts?

The bottom-line of this rant? The political class globally is driven by two things: personal monetary enrichment, and preservation of their hegemony over whatever public authorities they've managed to usurp. If would really be better if those people would retire. We need leaders who recognize the magnitude of the global carnage which will ensue if we simply stand by and do nothing while sea-levels rise 2-meters, 5-meters, 20-meters... I wonder if anyone has a computer model which will predict at what sea-level increase, a nuclear war will inevitably break out due to the displacement and incipient starvation of "a billion or so" human beings?

Even more sinister: I wonder if they've already done the calculations, and are planning on it. Read more

Tying the carbon tax issue to the government corruption issue is wrong. If you have a corrupt government then you can tie anything you don't want to it and never do anything. You can tie anything you do want to apple pie and get that done.Neither result actually decides if the carbon tax issue alone is worth doing. This is the question at hand.This is a problem we all have to solve.Look for advice on solving government corruption in other articles. Read more

The WHO has become a joke in its biased pronouncements on climate change related deaths. Carbon tax is not only a huge gift to bankers it will also hurt the poor the most. Lagarde and Kim should focus on poverty, not fashionable politics. if they invested most of their effort in ensuring an honest rule of law and honest policing the would make a real change. Read more

Carbon tax a gift to bankers?British Columbia, Canada, has a revenue neutral carbon tax. Taxes on carbon are offset by reductions in personal income tax, plus other regional offsets (more offset in rural, colder parts of the province).No bankers involved.No buying an selling of carbon credits.The only political input to the process was to exempt some industries that are energy intensive to ensure the local companies would still be competitive with foreign suppliers. Once we have widespread carbon taxes, these exemptions can be eliminated.So, no bankers enriched or even involved.No net gain in taxes - audited by our external auditor general.The provincial economy grew faster than that of the rest of Canada in the first 10 years of the tax and our carbon footprint dropped the most of any province in Canada.Get informed.You too could become a big fan of carbon taxes. Read more

This carbon pricing scheme is nothing but another financial scam where the elites can siphon off even more of our non-existent cash via artificially imposed taxes that benefit the Corporates, all paid for by the rank and file taxpayer in each respective country. It's an absolutely insane scheme where corporations and countries can buy the right to pollute what little pristine land is left on earth and force the peasants to pay for it and at the same time create more artificial financial instruments of destruction that are completely worthless and only do harm, all justified under the banner of what presumably is supposed to "save the earth", which these carbon taxes are not designed to do at all. Enough. Read more

"buying the right to pollute" doesn't sound nice, but it's also the economically optimal way to reduce pollution. Only those companies with the most efficient production, but which still "need" to pollute a bit will be able to afford it, while low-efficiency producers will not have the option. Read more

Stop calling CO2 "pollution." It makes you sound terribly ignorant. Do you exhale "pollution"? Is it "pollution" in your soda? Do plants require "pollution" for photosynthesis? Even the notion that CO2 is trapping heat has been discredited, as CO2 concentrations have risen over the last 20 years, yet the satellite temperature record shows NO warming for all of that time. Pathetic propaganda indeed. Read more

Quick look at NASA's measurement of temperatures: http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/ it's got a definite vertical incline. If you know something different quick tell the scientists so they will know. Read more

"Pollution" is all things that have negative economic externalities. Or, according to the wikipedia definition: "Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change."

I think Fee-and-Dividend carbon reduction methodology has probably more advantages in terms of social acceptance than regular carbon taxes.An innovative and even transformational way of using the Fee-and-Dividend method is to use it as part of carbon-based international monetary system as presented in Verhagen 2012 “The Tierra Solution: Resolving the climate crisis through monetary transformation” and updated at www.timun.net. The system is based upon the monetary standard of a specific tonnage of CO2e per person and proposes a global central bank and a modified balance of payments system that accounts for both financial and ecological (climate) debts and credits.Read more

PS On Air: The Super Germ Threat

NOV 2, 2016

In the latest edition of PS On
Air
, Jim O’Neill discusses how to beat antimicrobial resistance, which
threatens millions of lives, with Gavekal Dragonomics’ Anatole Kaletsky
and Leonardo Maisano of
Il Sole 24 Ore.

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